Category: cute

Grocery Shopping With A Three Year Old

Thing 3 eats. A lot. You may recall his “Michelin Man” nickname as a baby.

But he is VERY particular about what he eats. So much, in fact, that he prefers to do his own grocery shopping. Lucky for us, the local supermarket caters to just his demographic: three year olds who watch a lot of movies.

With a pint sized shopping cart, Thing 3 makes his way through the aisles, until he finds all his favorites. First up, the mac and cheese section. The store is very smart to put the Toy Story themed boxes within his reach.

Unlike SuburbanDaddy, who zig-zags across the store looking for items on his list, Thing 3 knows his way around like a pro.

Of course, his favorite spot is the dairy aisle. With the amount of milk he drinks, it’s like the opening scene from Leaving Las Vegas when Nicholas Cage dances with a shopping cart down the aisle at the liquor store.

No trip to the store would be complete without a tantrum.? In this case, it happens when we need to take all the items out of his cart and pay for them.?? Here he is sitting on the floor and crying in protest.

Not to worry, they have free balloons on the way out.? Balloons are a sure fire tantrum stopper.? Just make sure not to let go of the balloon in the parking lot.? That would be the nuclear bomb of tantrums.? Trust me.

Good Intentions Gone Bad

Sometimes the best intentions yield bad results. Last week, for Mothers Day, Thing 1 pledged to help. He even made this in school. How adorable.

So, with Thing 1 leading the way, he and Thing 2 set out to clean the basement. They may even have told me first. I don’t remember, they tell me a lot of stuff.? SuburbanMommy was enjoying her Mothers Day outside the house, so I had my hands full.?? I’m not sure what they were doing, I was just glad they weren’t fighting.? I assumed cleaning the basement meant what it always had until that point, which consisted of picking up all the toys and balls and other stuff.

A little while later, I spotted Thing 2 on his way to the basement. He was wearing goggles and had a roll of paper towels. His socks were soaking wet.

Me: “What are you guys doing down there?”

Thing 2: “We’re cleaning”

It was time to take a look.? With Thing 4 in my arms, I went to the basement to check out this cleaning operation.? I found the basement carpet was wet.? Really wet.? There were puddles of water on the floor in the bathroom.? Several towels were soaking wet.? They were wetting the towels, then carrying them, dripping wet, to parts of the basement to “clean” them.? How adorable.? To be more efficient, Thing 1 instructed Thing 2 to use the other sink at the wet bar.? Now there were two sources of puddles on the floor.

Let’s look at the bright side. They were trying to help. How often does that happen? They were also working together without fighting. That’s a good thing.? After using nearly an entire roll of paper towels to soak up the water, I asked:

“Is there anything else you cleaned I should know about?”

“No.” Then he thought about it. “Yes.”

“What?”

“The pillows”

They had taken the pillows from the couch and held them under the water in the sink to wash them.? Then put them back on the couch.?? Adorable.

Parent Abuse

I am regularly abused by Thing 3. He likes to randomly jump on me, bop me on the head, and generally use me as his personal jungle gym. Lately, he has become very bossy with his newly emerging ability to talk.

“Daddy, sit”, “Daddy read book”, and my personal favorite “On Daddy head” which means put this on your head.

I suppose I bring this on myself because I put things on my head to entertain him.

This hard to see, grainy image is not a captured terrorist. It is me being held captive by a 2 year old so he can jump on, climb on, and torture me by hitting my head with books, toys, and various stuffed animals. And I love every minute of it.

Winter 2009 Performances

It’s a time honored tradition. Each class in the school puts on a winter show. The kids rehearse for weeks and all the parents come to watch. Here are the highlights from this year.

In case you can’t pick out the Things, here are some clues. Thing 1 is strategically positioned between the two girls and loving it. Thing 2 is the kid who jumps up and waves “Daddy!” when he walks into the room. And Thing 3, well, you won’t miss him. He is the center of attention as always.

Happy Birthday Thing 2

Thing 2 turns four years old tomorrow.? His birthday also happens to be on Fathers Day this year.? We had the party last week, so no real big plans tomorrow.

Except he keeps asking who is coming to his birthday tomorrow.? I’m not sure what he is expecting since we had a full blown dual party last weekend for him and Thing 3 whose birthday was two weeks ago.

Thing 2 seems to have a hard time distinguishing between his birthday party and his actual birthday.? He has been saying all week, since the party, that he is now four years old.? And he gets upset if you try to explain that his actual birthday hasn’t happened yet.

The other concern he keeps talking about is that his younger brother, Thing 3, was very “serious” on his birthday.? He can’t understand why he would cry and not want to eat birthday cupcakes.? We can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Adding It Up

Toddlers can be attached to the strangest objects.? Thing 2 had Mustache Guy and Mister Dragon.

Thing 3 has cycled through several stuffed animals as his comfort objects.? First it was the monkey, then Pablo from Backyardigans.? Stuffed animals I can understand as comfort objects.? They are soft and cute.

But his latest object doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.? He has become very attached to a calculator.? He sleeps with it.? He reaches for it as soon as he wakes, and walks around the house with it in his hand.

I’ve seen him laying on the ground and pushing the buttons with a very serious look on his face.? What exactly is he calculating?? I have a few ideas.

Maybe he is adding up all the times he has cried so far today.? Believe me, he needs a calculator for that, it’s a very high number.

Or maybe he is adding up the amount of milk he’ll drink in the next 16 years.? If he maintains his current pace, that works out to $541,935.? More or less.

Or how about the number of rounds of golf his Daddy will play this year.? Oh wait, you don’t need a calculator to count those.? Just a couple of fingers.